Plug wars: the battle for electric car supremacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-electricity-charging/plug-wars-the-battle-for-electric-car-supremacy-idUSKBN1FD0QM <comment><USER2> Here in Europe, CCS is now the official standard for DC charging. Europe had already Type 2 as standard for AC charging. CCS is a Type 2 plug with 2 additional large pins for DC. Tesla is using Type 2 both for AC and DC. So the plugs of a Tesla supercharger actually fit into a CCS socket. But of course, it won't charge. Tesla seems to be at the limits of the Type 2 plug with their superchargers, CCS is supposed to scale to larger power levels.

So, while there probably was a tactical component in the German manufacturers pushing for CCS, one can also make quite good technical arguments for CCS. In true German fashion, it is bulky and somewhat overengineered for current cars, but for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> J1772 was fine until they added IP networking. I do not want a physical network connection between some unaudited charging station code and my likewise unaudited car control code. I don't even want to turn on telematics, until the car industry subcontractors start hiring security engineers instead of EEs for their software.

<comment><USER4> i've never heard that j1772 has ip networking to the car, are you sure of that? it's at least optional, because you can have home j1772 chargers without needing an internet connection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _unlike the one-size-fits-all nozzle that can refill all petrol cars_

Current petrol stations (in NZ) have 4 different 'one-size-fits-all' nozzles.

91/95/98RON + diesel, some places also have adBlue for diesel trucks.

It's wasteful to have multiple plugs but not the end of the world.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dumb question I've been wondering for a while: why not standardize the batteries themselves, make them easy to swap, robotically from underneath maybe? Then have stations that switch out your battery like a propane tank rather than having to wait and recharge?

<comment><USER3> Most electric car owners never charge other than at home, while they are sleeping. The "I need to take my car across the country on a whim" theory of car ownership isn't /actually/ a thing for most people, and "range anxiety" was engineered by the petroleum industry.

Put an outlet at every parking spot for topping up while you work or shop in a more remote location, and you'll solve the problem for 95% of all urban cars.

(If your commute is > 80 miles, you have a bigger problem!)

<comment><USER7> > "range anxiety" was engineered by the petroleum industry.

Can you substantiate this claim? It seems a little Alex Jones-y without any evidence to support it. My understanding from reading the Wiki page is that this phrase popped up 20 years ago in a newspaper actually talking _about_ a GM-made EV.

Frankly the chicken-and-egg scenario between charging infrastructure buildout and EV takeup is a very well-known dynamic of the market for this technology.

There was a time about ten years ago when many market participants were diving headfirst into EVs, but rapid-charging infrastructure was totally nonexistent and EVs didn't come anywhere close to the range of gas-powered cars, no matter how much you paid.

<comment><USER8> The auto industry has spent billions of dollars promoting a completely unrealistic image of motoring. When was the last time you saw a car commercial where someone was stuck in traffic on their commute?

The median car journey in the US is just over 12 miles each way. 93% of households drive less than 100 miles on any given day. Current electric cars have more than enough range for the vast majority of users the vast majority of the time, but people have been trained by marketing to place excessive weight on abnormal journeys like road trips.

The majority of households have more than one car, so it would make perfect sense for them to have one electric car for routine journeys and keep an ICE car for those rare longer journeys. People who do actually take the plunge and go electric consistently report that they charge much less often than they thought they would need to, especially away from home. If we had a realistic sense of how we actually use our cars, EVs could achieve >50% market penetration without any infrastructure at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> > 93% of households drive less than 100 miles on any given day.

But it's not the same 93% of households driving short trips every single day, while 7% of households drive long-haul day in and day out.

I might commute to work and back for less than 100 miles every single work day. But every weekend or so I might take a longer trip - short getaway to the beach, mountains, skiing resort, wine country, theme park, national park, relative out of town - you name it.

What am I supposed to do for that weekend or two? Take an Uber to Yosemite? Show up at Avis/Hertz and request to be raped on prices for a hot holiday weekend?

<comment><USER8> I didn't argue that _all_ car purchases should be electric, just that a very large proportion of households could use one even without any fast-charging infrastructure. As I said, the majority of American households have more than one car. Your usage is highly atypical - most people don't actually take long road trips very often. EV technology and infrastructure might not be ready for _your_ needs right now, but it's more than good enough to replace a huge proportion of ICE cars.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that advice makes sense for a multiple-car household (that actually describes my real-life situation, although ironically I prefer my Model S over wife's hybrid SUV for longer road trips).

For single-car households people would still seek comfort in the fact that even if they have one long trip a year, they're covered. And the costs of ownership of a compact gas/hybrid vs compact electric still lean in favor of the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tesla's Chademo adapter is $450, so it doesn't sound to me like it's a life- or-death issue for any car company with volume to back the right or wrong fast charging technology.

</comment><comment><USER10> The article repeatedly states that DC chargers can deliver more power than AC chargers, but I don't see how that could be a thing. Is it some limitation with the onboard power supplies?

It's my (limited, third-party) understanding that dual chargers on a Tesla will gladly saturate a 240V 80A J1772, while a single charger will take 48A off a NEMA 14-50 @ 240V.

<comment><USER11> It's a limitation in the car. When you have an AC based charger, the conversion and step up to battery voltage happens inside the car itself.

This process generates waste heat, which must be vented. At level 1, (wall outlet,) and level 2, (oven outlet,) it's not a big deal. When rapid charging, the heat dissipation is huge.

The AC to DC converters that can handle rapid charging are physically huge and There's no practical way to put that inside the car itself.

I suggest learning the basics about how charging a battery works. You need to apply a DC voltage directly to the battery. Electric vehicle batteries are in the hundreds of volts.

What these systems do is the car and the charger communicate, and the car ends up telling the external charger how to charge its battery. That's why there's a lot of competition among standards.

<comment><USER10> > _The AC to DC converters that can handle rapid charging are physically huge > and There 's no practical way to put that inside the car itself._

Ahh, that makes more sense now that I think about it. Because of the cross sectional area required to efficiently rectify and transform such high currents, the equipment is either very large (and thus expensive) and heavy (and thus inappropriate for a motor vehicle), or very inefficient (requiring considerable active cooling, and costing a lot more dosh).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Shame all these players cant get their shit together before we all have electric cars :-(

<comment><USER4> There are multiple failures. There is a standard for ac power, j1772, it works fine. Pretty much every electric car can use it, even the tesla (it comes with a free adapter).

Early ev charging standards had a fatal flaw, they allowed too little power. The j1772 only allowed about 30 amps. This was fine because early electric car and charagable hyrbrids only had tiny batteries that could be filled up in a few hours, there was a giant failure of imagination to see larger in the future batteries, or deliberate sabotage, so there was no planning for what would be needed to support large battery cars with needs for traveling.

Then tesla came along with a giant battery & it couldn't be recharged in a reasonable timeframe. What good is 250 miles range, 80 kwh if it takes 2 days to recharge it? So there was an extension of the j1772 standard to support 80 amps, 220 v and this let you charge the tesla at 60 miles of range per hour. The early leaf barely had 80 miles of effective range. So this extension of the j1772 was great, but only tesla needed it. afaik, no other evs support the higher power of the j1772. Then tesla forsaw if they built high power dc chargers, then you could have long range travel - there were the superchargers, 120 kw - this used dc. dc has an advantage bc it can directly charge the batteries. There was no good standard for that, so telsa made their own. They offer it free of charge if people agree to not sue them. Then the american automative engineers came up with a different plug standard that had sepaate ac and dc chargers, and it had the fatal flaw that there was one using it, it was less attractive than others.

Next, in europe, the car makers noticed that tesla was impossibly building long range, good cars that people wanted and even reduced their sales a bit. They built their own standard. There were claims it could have larger power than tesla super chargers but I think it was limited in practice. and again, no cars using it (eventually a few came on the market), and few or no high powered chargers. There was a law mandating so teslas in europe use that plug format.

Then porsche decided they'd build a new standard that was better than teslas, and it's like double the power. But tesla has already built thousands of super chargers in their worldwide network for years. The new porsche format would be faster than teslas but i believe there are none in existence outside of a test system, and it would also not work on normal commerical power systems, afaik.

The tesla plug has another advantage, it is small and light and supports both ac and dc through the same plug.

The other car companies would never accept that the tesla plug could be the defacto standard, so we have all these different things showing up.

Chademo was a better plan, it was 50kw, it was in lots of place in Japan. It is the only widely used standard that approaches widespread use that is close to the supercharger.

What's really needed is a world wide standard, free of patents and chargers, that spans ac and dc, and supports chargins and v2g, but also allowed for very high power rates. These plugs negotiate the amount of power that you send, the car controls it, so you can have a plug system that for some cars sends 120 kw, for others sends 120v 10 amps (1.2kw). We need a standard that can imagine charging 100kwh battery in 5 minutes in the distant future, but works for things today. Tesla could probably have been that. The likely thing is j1772 + one of the 3 major intl standards (higher power than 50kw chademo, or the euro standard or the us standard).

Meanwhile, I'll keep driving my tesla, like I have since the end of 2012.

<comment><USER13> AC is straightforward to standardize (it's just a plug, and signaling for the maximum current), but DC charging is complex because the charging electronics are in the charging station. A charge station would have to support all present and future pack voltages, and be able to deliver a requested current at that voltage (and the request can change second-by-second.)

<comment><USER14> Based on the article AC is not so powerful as DC. Makes perfect sense as the former changes direction while the latter is more direct.

The mirages of modern journalism...

You got a good point - the architecture, weight trade-off, capabilities trade- off and cost trade-offs matter. Who is responsible for what. As long as the industry changes quickly and big players don't agree the vertical integrated solutions will stay. In the long run there is a need for a platform as it will be cheaper to do as much as possible in the shared infrastructure. When lower cost cars are getting on the market in larger numbers may mark the time when things are settled.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


PolicyGenius launch: Instant insurance advice and comparison shopping - <AUTHOR> https://www.policygenius.com

<comment><USER2> I was really excited about this until I got on the front page and it missed the two insurances I actually use: home owner's (condo) insurance and health insurance. Would love to have advice and comparison shopping on those.</comment>


Ask HN: Which is your recommended domain registrar for .it/.ly domains? - <AUTHOR>

I use namecheap these days but it seems they do not have option to register .it/.ly domains. Correct me if this is not the case! <comment><USER2> I have a couple CCTLD domains hosted with [http://www.101domain.com](http://www.101domain.com), who I'd recommend.

</comment><comment><USER3> not sure, but you can check out the ones exotic domain finders (like [http://domai.nr/](http://domai.nr/) and [http://domize.com/](http://domize.com/)) use as affiliate.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://register.ly/](http://register.ly/)</comment>


PG: Thank you for putting on Startup School - <AUTHOR>

I'd really like to say thank you to PG, the folks at YC, the speakers and everyone that put time and effort into making startup school what I think was an amazing event this year.
All the speakers shared invaluable insights into what we all love best - building things. In fact, I've already started hounding people who weren't able to attend to watch the videos. From Brian Chesky's lessons on perseverance to Andrew Mason's comments on forgetting your grand artistic vision and just building a tool that people can use, I feel like I've gotten some wonderful tips and tricks to help out my own ventures.
Perhaps even more important than the speakers though, at least for me, was the people. There really isn't any way to describe how invigorating it is to be around so many excited about technology, building things and their great ideas of how to change the world. I feel like the projects and ideas I've been procrastinating are now achievable and need to be done right away.
So, thank you again, everyone involved, for putting on such a singular event that helps us all out so much. <comment><USER2> Thanks, but the credit for organizing it goes to Kirsty Nathoo, Jessica, and Kate Courteau, and of course BASES. They organized everything. All I did was show up and speak.

This was a good one though. The speakers really delivered.

<comment><USER3> I loved the talks by Ron Conway and Dalton Caldwell.

Ron for giving the 'long view', a different view of what investing is like from the way people usually have.

Nice to make the distinction between 'investors' and 'company builders'.

And Dalton Caldwell was on top of his game there, taking the failure of imeem, showing he gave it his 100%, and why that didn't even matter, and not even pausing his stride, on to his new venture.

What an energy.

<comment><USER4> Thank you, I really appreciate the fact that people seem to be receptive to the things I had to say.

Frankly, I wasn't sure what kind of reaction my talk would get... but since pg personally asked me to do it, how could I pass up the opportunity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Median quality of atendees was also -phenomenal-. Lots of really smart and driven hackers.

I also got to meet edw519. I can confirm - he is as awesome as his HN comments suggest.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for the kind words, T.J. I really enjoyed meeting you (and many others), too!

 _Median quality of atendees was also -phenomenal-_

Something magical happens when you put a bunch of us in a room together: SUS = HN^n.

At one point, I just stood in the middle of the courtyard during a break, closed my eyes, and picked up random bits of conversation:

      - we had to load the source code...
      - our MVP was a little too minimal...
      - we may pivot again...
      - we made it to 100,000 uniques...
      - try a different framework...
      - finding another audience...
      and my favorite:
      - we're gonna change the world...

I love it when you guys talk dirty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was going to submit the following, but wasn't sure if it was following the rules of HN posts, so here it is:

Tell/Ask HN: I attended startup school as a non-founder and it was awesome, how was your experience?

I attended applied and attended Startup School 2010 as a non-founder and it was quite possibly the best day of my life in recent memory.

I want to say thanks to Paul, Airbnb, Bases and all the volunteers, and anyone else that put in any effort to make this event what it was.

Second, thanks to all the speakers! You all did an awesome job. Well done! Words cannot describe how well everyone did. By far the best event/conference I have ever attended mostly because of all the interesting and insightful talks.

Some of my highlights:

I sat next to the 3 awesome intelligent founders of Dr. Chronos (plug: <http://drchronos.com>) and spoke with them about all sorts of interesting topics through out the entire event and after.

I met Alexis and Christopher from Reddit and we joked and talked about many interesting topics during lunch. I even got some pictures taken with them.

Speaking of lunch, that might have been some of the best pizza I have ever had.

I feel like I met almost the entire Airbnb team, they were all awesome. Sorry, if I can't remember all your names, so I want to say thanks for the awesome after party! Special thanks goes to Nick, Joe, and Erin for putting up with me.

I briefly met Paul and got my picture taken with him, truly an honor. Thanks again Paul!

I met tons of intelligent, fun, awesome developers and founders. The networking was worth every single penny alone (just a little over $600 total including hotel from Oklahoma). I learned a ton! It was truly and inspiring time for me throughout the trip.

To all those I did not mention above, thank you for making this quite possibly one of the most fun, exciting, and enjoyable days I can remember in recent history.

I hope I can attend next year. I'm looking forward to it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think Jessica deserves most of the credit. So thank you Jessica and crew!

</comment><comment><USER9> Videos are here I believe: <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool>

<comment><USER10> I wish those videos were broken up by speaker

<comment><USER11> Here is what I did for myself.

9:30 Andy Bechtolsheim Founder Arista Networks; Founder, Sun Microsystems <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271978319> 0:02:00 (not full)

10:00 Paul Graham Partner, Y Combinator; Founder, Viaweb <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271983983> 0:00:00

10:30 Andrew Mason Founder, Groupon <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271983983> 0:29:30

11:00 Break

11:30 Tom Preston-Werner Founder, GitHub <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271992324> 0:03:20

12:00 Greg McAdoo Partner, Sequoia Capital <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271992324> 0:36:00

12:30 Reid Hoffman Partner, Greylock; Founder, LinkedIn <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/271992324> 1:04:00

12:55 Lunch

2:30 Ron Conway Partner, SV Angel <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272002787> 0:01:00

3:00 Adam D'Angelo Founder, Quora <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272002787> 0:40:00

3:30 Dalton Caldwell Founder, Picplz; Founder, Imeem <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272002787> 1:08:30

3:55 Break

4:15 Mark Zuckerberg Founder, Facebook <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272002787> 1:50:30 and <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272007200>

4:45 Brian Chesky Founder, Airbnb <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272007200> 0:23:00

<comment><USER12> Justin.tv lets users trim and title recordings (they call it "highlighting"). I did that for my favorite talks, here are direct links with no skipping required:

Paul Graham: Recent trends in startup fundraising <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272030715>

Andrew Mason (Groupon): Polishing your turds and getting SUPER RICH <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272030648>

Tom Preston-Werner (Github): Optimizing for happiness <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272031754>

Ron Conway (SV Angel): You can do it too <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272031486>

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) interviewed by Jessica Livingston <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272031868> \+ <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272031906>

Brian Chesky: 1000 days of AirBnB <http://www.justin.tv/c3oorg/b/272030551>

Anyone wanna do the rest?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> another thanks. the more i think about it, the more i appreciate how invaluable the talks were. this was my second startup school. but oddly i think the most valuable thing is a sort of subconscious quieting of the mind around the key places where startups really need to get going.

for so many people starting new businesses there are just a lot of unknowns that can create noise in one's mind (and prevent one from innovating around the other more real domain problems). when you see and hear other people's stories, strangely, i think the mind starts to normalize them and all these classes of fuzzy / unknown obstacles, that we don't even realize are there, start to disappear.

serial entrepreneurs often have already created this normalized, orthogonal, clean parse tree in their mind from experience. and big name institutions or big name angels create the same quieting of the mind. but i think in part you can get the same thing from startup school, whether one realizes it or not. the ultimate hack is that you don't actually need anything to 'quiet the mind' whatever that means, if you realize how important that resulting action is in the physics of it..

</comment><comment><USER14> Thank you to the YCombinator crew and BASES for creating the event, and to all of the awesome people to came as well. Hopefully some of you will be on that stage in the next couple of years!

</comment><comment><USER15> The airbnb presentation is excellent, just watching it now, interesting because I've already heard the most of the story in other interviews but it's still worth hearing again.

</comment><comment><USER16> I watched most of the speakers on Justin.tv as well. What an incredible group of individuals. I wish I could have been there in person and there is no doubt I will be next year. It is amazing the impact YC has made in just 5 years. I hope you guys keep it up, you truly have a wonderful thing going all the way through. benevolence and kindness will surely pay off in cash as well for you guys (I think we all know it already has).

Kudos to PG and the YC team!

</comment><comment><USER17> I've never been to SV but watching through these video's gives me a sense of the sheer intensity of the energy that seems to be there with so many companies and founders focused in one place. It's intoxicating; I'm so jealous!

Thanks to all involved in the event and justin.tv for showing them. I'm probably going to go through them all again at some point - there was so much good stuff and I was too excited to write notes as I watched.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thank you PG, Jessica and team! It was very motivating to see everyone! I did not attend personally but the videos were terrific!

</comment><comment><USER19> Though I wasn't able to attend this year, I did stream some of the live talks on justin.tv, and I plan on watching the rest tomorrow. What I saw and heard was very motivating, not to mention fun! I really wish I could have been there, but maybe next year. Anyway, I'd also like to say thanks to all involved!

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, thank you so much for doing this. The quality of both speakers and attendees was fantastic. It's really awesome to be surrounded by that many people that are as technical and as focused on building businesses as I am. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to attend.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great show! Worth the trip. Everyone was great but the most memorable speakers for me were Groupon, imeem, and airbnb. If anyone is wondering if they should fly out to see it, DO IT. So much better than watching streams.

thanks ycom

~mrC from Cambridge, MA

</comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, thanks to YC for organizing it and to the speakers for volunteering their time. I have almost never learned so much in one day for free. You guys have really made me think about what I want to do with my life.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thanks, this was an amazing event to follow, even only the stream. The chatbox action was also interesting at times, except for the inevitable trolls. Good job Justin.tv

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps off-topic question: how is HN traffic affected by Startup School? I want to see a traffic graph with each speaker's talk time marked ;)

</comment><comment><USER25> Thanks, the quality of the speakers (and talks, since I've heard a few of the speakers before) was immense.

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks Jessica, pg, and team for such a wonderful opportunity. Great speakers and amazing people.

</comment><comment><USER27> Thanks another great year at Startup School. The Airbnb after hours was good too.

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone working on transcripts or summaries? Would love to pitch in.

</comment><comment><USER29> Thanks for streaming the event</comment>


Hex clock - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacopocolo.com/hexclock/

<comment><USER2> I actually liked this idea so much that I made a real-life version: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoLDBbEFCFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoLDBbEFCFw)</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best recent Sci-fi books you've read - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The Fold - Peter Clines - [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23164927-the- fold](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23164927-the-fold)

Well written, without too much hand-wavery and awesome twist in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER3> Been working through Drew Hayes' "Super Powereds" series... nothing ground breaking, but it is light and entertaining.

On the more hard scifi end of the spectrum, anything by Peter Watts. Blindsight and the follow-up Echophraxia are truly fantastic, entertaining, and head-scratchingly interesting in the concepts on display.

</comment><comment><USER4> I read a ton, and without a doubt, one of the best sci-fi books I've read in the last 10 years is "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Read it. Seriously. Runner-up might be "Spaceman of Bohemia" by Jaroslav Kalfar.

</comment><comment><USER5> Assuming that modern means very recent, I very much enjoyed Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.</comment>


Meteor Galaxy launches starting at $495 p/month - <AUTHOR> https://www.meteor.com/why-meteor/pricing <comment><USER2> This page is blank for me, even with my adblocker turned off.</comment>


DotCloud releases support for Perl, aka Camel-as-a-Service - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dotcloud.com/dotcloud-introduces-camel-as-a-service-with-i

<comment><USER2> Nice one guys. Our company uses mostly Perl for our server side code. We'll keep you in mind as a provider.

</comment><comment><USER3> As usual, the DotCloud team is hanging out here to answer questions, hand out truckloads of invites, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> What a fantastic idea!

I would love to know more about the discussions you had with miyagawa, and how the design for this evolved. Anything this elegant must have taken a ton of iterations.

Oh, and may I have an invite, please?

</comment><comment><USER5> We are a Perl shop and this is good new for us - we need PSGI and multiple databases - This _could_ be the step we are looking for to offload our web stack...it is taking too much time to manage all that, rather than getting on with coding!

</comment><comment><USER6> Great news for the Perl community. Congrats! And thanks as well to dotcloud for making it happen. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would like one (1) invite. Or maybe two. Please?

<comment><USER3> How about 50? :)

<http://www.dotcloud.com/account/create>

      A5FxUv    0HJldL
      oM0PPT    l6CWNG
      4iP5YR    ggCJ1k
      mSMOaV    h1JvT7
      rh4aoT    BkeCkR
      2xYfBf    uyR3d4
      g2ZBP9    hJ0JKc
      OWx5qu    cmf9z9
      bAlvX4    W6yt3q
      Wi42Ft    XgFmfP
      nnvVxf    kfHuMh
      kJjg4Q    eXV7Wn
      Djxozb    chSFmG
      gt3nQb    TNNupl
      oB2JNm    OgDsHW
      thEAaq    oZx5mv
      I1pMjR    nWeKhz
      vjd19G    YiNr1O
      wG2Uqm    XBQp3P
      wNZJAE    yRfnON
      8tiohx    AIg6BH
      W2IU3h    xmfjZ5
      E5Ttq5    GWlpMK
      x8lUjd    Vfbjxi
      MEDa7H    HnytsU

<comment><USER7> Joy!

<comment><USER2> Tried the code and it didn't work. Can you mail me one at mmaunder at gmail? Tnx.

<comment><USER8> That's 50 separate codes, not 1 long code. Try one at random.

<comment><USER3> Sorry about that - I edited the list for clarity. <http://xkcd.com/208/>

<comment><USER9> After frustrating 10 minutes of entering codes, I realized that I started 4 hours too late.

That list must have been exhausted unbelievably fast, I don't think even Linode VPS giveaway a few months back was that successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are there plans for a "Perl worker" component?

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. Coming soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Codes exhausted... anyway nice to read this.

DotCloud++ Miyagawa++ Perl++

Good luck !

</comment><comment><USER12> This entry in their FAQ after the April 21st outage brought a chuckle-

Where is DotCloud hosted?

DotCloud runs on Amazon EC2. More specifically, we run on the us-east-1 region, across multiple availability zones.

<comment><USER3> Tell us about it. Expect accelerated plans for multi-region deployments, less reliance on EBS, and eventually support for different infrastructure providers.

<comment><USER12> Cool. I have snagged one of the invite codes. Look forward to learning more about these features when you are done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> this looks really cool. please send an invite code my way and i'll kick the tires. thanks in advance.

</comment><comment><USER14> it seems I am not the only to not get the point of PSGI:

[http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2011/03/why-psgiplack- matt...](http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2011/03/why-psgiplack-matters- testing.html#comment-794)

It resumes quite well my opinion and concern regarding the doc.

</comment><comment><USER14> huh?

\- No Apache????

\- why force a rather devish level PSGI module on all web applications???? oh, yeah, you've been advised by the guy who made the port...

      i've been using CGI::Fast under Apache for years and it has been working just PERFECTLY fine.
      Do not see the need to change especially when
      the PSGI doc is so badly written...
      At least the doc states that people who supports mod_perl/CGI::Fast will not see much benefit of switching to PSGI...

\- what is the Perl version?

<comment><USER10> 5.12: <https://gist.github.com/945834>

<comment><USER14> thank you! recent version, that's a plus.</comment></comment></comment>


Panasonic aims to boost energy density in Tesla batteries by 20% - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panasonic-tesla-exclusive/exclusive-panasonic-aims-to-boost-energy-density-in-tesla-batteries-by-20-executive-idUSKCN24V1GB <comment><USER6> _" by 20% in five years"_

20% now would be news. 20% in 5 years is "what's taking you so long"? Since 2000, lithium-battery energy density has doubled each decade. There's a limit, but another 100% improvement by 2030 is a projection.[1]

[1] [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Projected-Li-ion- battery...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Projected-Li-ion-battery- costs-88-and-micro-battery-energy-density-92-as-functions-of_fig13_315747192)

<comment><USER7> The graph you are linking to shows something like 15% in 5 years and 30% in 10 years.

<comment><USER6> More than that, but, yes, less than 100% More like 63% in 10 years.

        2000 - <USER2>
        2010 - <USER3>
        2020 - <USER4>
        2030 - <USER5>

<comment><USER7> We are now in 2020. From 325 to 425 it's about 30%, not 63%. The past increments are not that relevant for what's being discussed here. Panasonic is aiming for a 20% increase in 5 years, that's from now to 2025. In that graph the projected increase is below that, at about 15%, so, yes, the Panasonic thing is kind of a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This improvement is for cells made by Panasonic, for Tesla. The thing is, Tesla plans to be manufacturing its own cells by then, and they certainly don't intend to produce less energy-dense batteries than their suppliers. We'll see on Battery & Powertrain Investors day (Sept. 22).

Elon recently invited OEMs to partner with Tesla for battery supplies. I wouldn't be surprised that they keep their in-house cells for Tesla vehicles and stationary storage, and make "their" Panasonic cells available to auto competitors (this way, they secure the global supply chain, set prices for the industry, have the option to bundle other products/services, etc.) "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

</comment><comment><USER9> Great but more important is how battery prices keep falling. Power density is already high enough that long range versions of the Model 3 can go 400 miles, which, with fast charging available when needed, is enough for the vast majority of auto owners.

The problem is that the battery pack that takes makes the cars too expensive to purchase for most people. But in a few more years falling prices will make ev's similar in sticker prices to comparable ice's. That plus much lower operating costs will cause ev sales to skyrocket.

</comment><comment><USER10> Bold claim for something that I'd imagine must be pretty close to diminishing return on RD

</comment><comment><USER11> Three years ago they were promising 3x by 2021. What happened?</comment>


Pick up today's Metro in Boston - <AUTHOR>

I havent seen it yet but i guess there is a section in todays Metro on Boston Entrepreneurs under 40.<p> <comment><AUTHOR> My bad. Its an article on one enterpreneur. The owner of "Second Glass" a wine magazine</comment>


EU draws up sweeping rules to curb illegal online content - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/e9aa1ed4-ad35-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2 <comment><AUTHOR> > New act suggests a centralised EU tech regulator with the power to enforce > rules

This is cute. EU bureaucratic body censoring web in member states. I would like to see that.

> Legal experts believe this is an unprecedentedly bold move. "I could see a > [centralised EU regulator] causing a lot of waves . . . it is a substantial > incursion, if not legally then morally, into individual country > sovereignty," said Lilian Edwards, law professor at Newcastle University and > an expert in internet regulation.</comment>


World War II All Over Again (Google vs. Apple) - <AUTHOR> http://vukicevic.blogspot.com/2009/08/world-war-ii-all-over-again-google-vs.html <comment><USER2> This metaphor does not map. Apple, Microsoft and Google all compete in some areas and cooperate in others. Applying a martial metaphor, especially attempting to map the players onto WWII is not illustrative or illuminating.

<comment><USER3> It's a playful representation of one key lesson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yahoo is definetely the US! It joined the British and it's influence might be crucial

<comment><USER3> That could work - Yahoo is US, Microsoft is UK (and traditional Western Europe). AT&T could be Italy, Motorola is Eastern Europe. Nokia makes a lot of sense as Japan since they seem to have their own set of priorities but are kinda cooperating with Android (Google)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for trivializing a war my grandfather fought in and died. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Just kidding. I'm still trying to figure out who Japan would be..

<comment><USER3> You scared me for a second. The Japan-equivalent is tough to figure out. Maybe HTC, Sony, Nokia...not sure yet.</comment></comment>


Firefox's enterprise support version has now been released - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

<comment><USER2> A marked change of stance from the following?

"Mike, you do realize that we get about 2 million Firefox downloads per day from regular user types, right? Your "big numbers" here are really just a drop in the bucket, fractions of fractions of a percent of our user base.

Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours. Until we run out of people who don't have sysadmins and enterprise deployment teams looking out for them, I can't imagine why we'd focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about."

[http://mike.kaply.com/2011/06/23/understanding-the- corporate...](http://mike.kaply.com/2011/06/23/understanding-the-corporate- impact/#comment-10493)

<comment><USER3> It looks more like this replaces the (now quite outdated) Long Term Support version of 3.6, which even got updated yesterday: <http://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/3.6.26/releasenotes/>

Part of this new ESR process is that 3.6 will go EOL in April.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Proposed release schedule at [https://www.mozilla.org/img/covehead/esr/release- overview.pn...](https://www.mozilla.org/img/covehead/esr/release- overview.png): one year of support, with ~12 weeks to get to the next version.

</comment><comment><USER5> Without the Windows version being available as a MSI, this still isnt going to get enterprise support. At least not support/migration from people deploying FrontMotion's Firefox MSIs.

<comment><USER6> I think this ESR is purely about extending the release schedule/security fix lifetime. Enterprisy features can be added in the normal releases just as well.

<comment><USER7> The thing is, enterprise users have been begging Mozilla for official MSI support for _years_ now.

The fact that they _still_ haven't done anything about it, even with a supposed enterprise version kind of indicates that they're still not taking the enterprise seriously.

<comment><USER8> Firefox is 100% open source, so even if Mozilla itself doesn't focus on making MSIs, other people can. There is at least one company doing just that,

<http://bespokeio.com/>

<comment><USER7> FrontMotion mentioned in the GP post is probably the most popular one I'm aware of. But it's absurd to have to rely on a third party for what's a basic matter of packaging.

MSI is _the_ standard for packaging applications for deployment in enterprise environments for Windows. Mozilla's prolonged refusal to officially support it amounts to a tacit refusal to properly support enterprise.

This isn't a new issue, nor is it a minor one. The Bugzilla issue for this was opened _eight years ago_ [1] and there still isn't a proper, official deployment solution (and this isn't even getting into the lack of centralized management support).

[1] - <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231062>

<comment><USER8> It isn't a basic matter of packaging. You also need to do very exhaustive testing to make sure it works exactly as it should in all possible cases. Enterprise support is not easy to do.

<comment><USER9> Of course it isn't. But Google do it just fine with Chrome:

[http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/chromebrowser.ht...](http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/chromebrowser.html)

<comment><USER8> Why is it surprising that Google can do it? Google has massive resources.

<comment><USER10> Mozilla brought in over 100 million in 2009.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is 12 months enough? Especially when you consider enterprise software vendors need time to test as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> So that's what "ESR" stands for. I had almost convinced myself that it's in honor of "Eric S. Raymond".

<comment><USER13> No, this version of Firefox won't encourage you to buy guns and vote libertarian.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more web developers found startups? - <AUTHOR>

I have a friend who is a talented web developer. His resume is filled with the latest and greatest: Django, Prototype, Rails, Ajax yada yada. He makes decent money developing websites for small businesses, but nothing spectacular. I asked him why he didn't try founding a startup, even if just in his spare time. "No ideas, I guess." "Ever heard of Paul Graham?" I asked. "Nope" ;)
As someone who is trying to learn the skills on his resume, his 'no ideas' response frustrates me. That got me thinking: What other qualities do successful startup founders have that web developers don't?
Ideas? Ambition? Family? Why don't more people make the leap? <comment><USER2> Only some people are wired for it.

My wife is smart, hard-working, and has skills that would translate into much higher paychecks if she worked for herself. Even her hobbies could make her lots of money. I've tried numerous times to get her to start her own business, because I find entrepreneurship so fulfilling and I love the freedom and the challenges. I want to share the feeling with her and, frankly, I also want her to better understand me. Her complete lack of interest in starting her own business is so alien to me that we have really struggled to even communicate about it. I've bought her books and cut out articles of people that have started successful businesses in her field of interest in an attempt to entice her to the startup fold. She is completely not interested, and she gets tense and testy when I even suggest she start her own business.

One of her best explanations was that her very traditional, 'ladder-oriented' upbringing (father was a military officer, then a corporate man, and her mother was in academia) has made her most comfortable with a traditional job. She wants the safety and structure of working for someone else. Even if a startup would be more lucrative, fun, and flexible than her current job, her fear of the unknown outweighs those benefits. She doesn't want to have to always "figure out what to do next", and she doesn't want her income to be inconsistent.* She also needs quite a bit of external positive reinforcement for her emotional well-being (that is, she needs people telling her "Thatta girl!" when she does a great job in order to feel good and keep going.) She thinks a startup would be lonely and she thinks her self-confidence and motivation would falter without frequent external reinforcement from co- workers and supervisors. All of which is probably true.

Both of her parents are very educated (PhDs) and have always worked for someone else. They are also relatively wealthy. My parents didn't attend college, and are "rural middle-class," but they have both owned their own businesses. My parents also have some very wealthy entrepreneurial friends that I was around quite a bit as a child.

* I went from making $40K/yr working for someone else, to making more than that A MONTH working for myself. Even though I was making EXPONENTIALLY more money by working for myself, the income was sporadic, so my wife asked that I get a 'second job' making about $10 an hour as a 'backup'! She is completely emotional and irrational about money, and it drives me crazy.

<comment><USER3> I find it hard to believe you were making over $480,000 a year and your wife insisted you get a second job making $10 an hour. Perhaps your calculations are off.

<comment><USER2> No, my calculations are not off. But thanks for the math check :-P

I understand the ridiculousness of what I'm saying. That is my f0Rking point. My wife is emotional and irrational about money, and especially so about having a CONSISTENT paycheck. [This is the same woman that actually thought briefly about declaring bankruptcy when she was younger, despite the fact that she had a large number of shares in a major bank at the time. It never entered her mind to sell the shares, because her grandfather had been president of the bank some time during the '70s, so the shares were "sentimental" and part of her "family heritage." Never mind the fact that she really needed the money, and the bank stock was starting to tank anyway.]

My wife is a wonderful, compassionate woman...so I try to overlook her big weird money issues.

She didn't specifically ask me to get a job making just $10/hr...that's just the way it worked out. She asked me to get a "low-stress" job that I could work after having worked 60-70 hours a week on my own business. It had to be a job that I was qualified to do, and that offered (backup) health insurance. Since we lived in a somewhat rural area at the time, the only option was a nightshift job at a local hotel...and I started at $7.48/hr. I ended up making ALMOST $10/hr. And it was NOT "low-stress" (I was slapped, spit on, robbed, etc. during my employment there.) The big perk while I worked there was that I could stay at almost any Hilton property in the world for just $29 a night, which helped me immensely when I was traveling for my own company. I worked that second job for exactly 4 years and 11 months. Even after I was making millions a year. And I never actually made it to a FULL $10 an hour there. I think I topped out at $9.95/hr.

The only reason I STILL don't have a second job is that I had a serious illness and could barely even work at my own company. My wife also had cancer, and she started to re-evaluate her irrational fears.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> None of you guys are making money because you keep over-analyzing things. This thread is a brilliant example. Stop thinking you need to move to CA, have some brilliant, big idea, and a truckload of cash from YCombinator or investors.

There are thousands of people making thousands every month, and they range from teenagers to mom and pops who know nothing about design or programming. Everyone here already has a one-up on them. Instead of trying to create a new 'web 2.0' service, pick a content site and do it good! It doesn't matter if it's been done before. I created a site that offered MySpace layouts and graphics, despite there already being like 300 of them, and it was making close to $1k three months later. I sold it six months later for $12k on SitePoint. No investors, no big expenses.

I now leave you with a quote from Nas:

        No idea's original, there's nothin' new under the sun
        It's never what you do, but how it's done

</comment><comment><USER5> The reason I haven't made the leap is pretty simple: money and location.

I currently work for a large corporation, making money, and slowly saving, but it's not very fast. I can't support myself for more than a few months before being forced to work again.

So, if I want to do a startup, I need an angel investor to fund me. That brings me to the second problem, I'm tied down into middle america. I love the city I'm in, but it doesn't have the kind of abundance of cash that the coasts have.

So, my plan moving forward is to contribute to open source and personal projects. I'll try to make a few bucks off them, but probably nothing serious. If I hit on an idea that I am really passionate about, I'll work on it more exclusively on the side or whatever day job I have, until it is able to provide decent income by itself.

As far as your ideas question, I have no shortage of ideas, but I have a shortage of ideas that would be good businesses. They are either too small, too hard to monetize, or they are simply that I don't have the passion for them to take them far enough to make them viable.

<comment><USER6> But isn't the core Web 2.0 mentality really that monetary costs have been drastically lowered and location doesn't matter? There are successful companies all over the world founded in spare time on barebones budgets. Middle America can't be that bad, can it?

<comment><USER5> You're right, the business costs are much cheaper than other business options. But of course, I still want to eat, and have a roof, and basically not suffer. That still costs money.

I'm certainly not just sitting back and doing nothing, instead I'm searching for that idea that really grabs me, and will keep me going in my free time. The idea for a part time business needs to be more engaging and interesting than a full time idea (at least for me), because I've already spent most of my mental stamina grinding through a day job by the time I can get started on the personal idea.

Either way, I have developed and launched <http://www.irclogger.com> in the last few weeks, just because I wanted this service and couldn't find it. (logging freenode's irc channels). But I have no plans to commercialize it, and wouldn't feel bad if it disappeared.

<comment><USER6> You're right about everything costing money, and the guy who said he didn't have enough reserve money saved up is spot on. I got ideas, but even I can't just quit my job and go. Seriously, YC should open a dorm room, where they get 6% of anything worked on while they provide room and board. :) An entrepreneur hostel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lack of good examples. Most people here probably read techcrunch, so day in and day out they get to read nothing but success stories. So they think success is the norm. So they have no problem developing something extremely simple, because they know that simplicity has paid off for some people.

An older guy who is in a corporate job, has no clue about techcrunch, and knows that whatever idea he comes up with has been done by Google etc. And if it hasn't they'll just steal his idea before he can make money.

So in the end he doesn't want to give up his corporate job, his income, and 2 years of his life, to develop an application has little probability of success.

I mean look at your average startup founder, its a younger guy who has no other commitments. And they can survive with a burn rate of $500 a month(live with parents + cost of dedicated server + other minor bills), while an older guy has a $2500 mortgage, $500 food bill, college tuition payments etc. And he thinks he needs $100,000 in servers, since that's what he is used with working at his corporate gig.

</comment><comment><USER8> Everyone has their own reasons, I'm sure. Here are some that come to mind: \- They don't have an idea for a startup \- They've never thought about entrepreneurship \- They don't know how to go about doing it \- They might be afraid to try \- They just don't feel like it; the commitment involved is not appealing to them \- They have other interests in life that are more important to them \- Their life situation prevents them from pursuing a startup idea

I don't quite agree that "web developers" don't have the qualities of "startup founders". Many probably do, but might not show them for whatever reason.

Chance plays a huge role is success, so the qualities of "successful" startup founders might not be that different from the "unsuccessful" ones.

Ambition, passion, persistence, motivation, good communication skills, a certain level of intelligence, ability to work with and motivate people are some qualities (certainly not all) that you'll probably find in founders.

<comment><USER9> Because it's scary to try _anything_ new. And finding a problem you're passionate about is hard.

Practical matters are much easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ambition and Perseverance.

The way that one of the RescueTime founders described his YC class was:

"I've been damn impressed with the other YC founders, but they aren't that much better than many of the great coders I've worked with. They're just bolder."

<http://gigaom.com/2008/04/02/ycombinator/>

</comment><comment><USER11> _"Ever heard of Paul Graham?" I asked. "Nope"_

There's your answer.

Although it's easy to forget it after hanging around here for a while, doing a startup is not intuitively obvious. If you don't have a role model you're not going to get far.

Hand the guy a copy of _Founders at Work_ and see if something clicks. If not, perhaps it was never meant to be.

The other factor, of course, is that technical skill is only a part of what you need as a startup founder. You need some Jobs to go with your Woz. If this guy doesn't have the marketing spark, and he realizes that ("No ideas, I guess"), he's acting quite rationally. Maybe he'll choose a different path if and when he meets the right business person.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am not making the leap because I don't have enough reserve money saved up.

<comment><USER13> <http://news.ycombinator.com/apply>

<comment><USER14> Do you think it's really enough money to do 3 month full time commitment? (I have family, not enough saving)

<comment><USER15> No, it's definitely not. So where's the YC clone that does $80k per founder? I'd bet they will achieve a significantly higher success rate than YC does. More experienced, hungrier, stable founders who are highly motivated not to return to their cubes because they already know how much it sucks.

<comment><USER16> > More experienced, hungrier, stable founders who are highly motivated not to > return to their cubes because they already know how much it sucks.

I conjecture that these kinds of people will tend to be more risk averse and that the group will have a better median result (and higher success rate).

But startup successes can be massive and a better strategy _might_ be to chase the blockbusters with younger people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A lot of people don't make the leap because they're afraid of the risks associated with not having a stable income. A lot of developers working day jobs would at least like to match their current salary if not more to account for the risk.

This becomes a bigger problem along the years, since you're more likely to have a higher salary that would be a lot harder to match with just seed funding.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not everyone's built to be an entrepreneur... Nothing wrong with that, all of us that are, we need employees ;-)

Just cuz you are capable of doing it does not mean you should.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was that guy, except I had loads of ideas. I even created them, includidng the first content management system ever, which I designed and was in use by our web development clients in 1994, for a company I owned.

Sadly, I had no freaking idea how to market, run a business, get funding, get mass customers, or anything else of use. Eventually I figured enough of it out to launch a profitable startup, but it took 15 years. lol.

I think the most important thing to success you need is a successful mentor, who is doing something similar to what you want to achieve. The more the better. That was the major turning point for me.

</comment><comment><USER20> Passion and tolerance for risk (both emotional and financial). Ideas, too, I guess. Lots of people truly don't have any ideas and just don't think that way.

</comment><comment><USER21> The ability to sling code by itself is not good criteria for building a company. Just like being a good cook doesn't make you well equipped to own a restaurant. If your friend is happy with his current situation, makes a decent living doing it, why would he change it?

</comment><comment> cypress-hill lets remember you have to do quite well to match the pay, benefits, and lifestyle of joe corp coder

i won't toot my horn but i leave at 5pm SHARP, go to the gym everyday, great benefits and 401k, and i get about $150k, lots of vacation time too

you think about how hard you would have to work on a startup to get that.</comment>


Fukushima is worse than ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2017/02/16/no-fracking-way-fukushima-daiichi-worse-ever/ <comment><USER2> Prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667470)

His entire rant is based on fake news.

The whole "The radiation levels inside Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor No. 2 have soared in recent weeks" is bogus.

The new, higher readings are from areas never measured before[0]; levels measured from consistent points are falling consistently!

He revised the article to fix his misspellings of "Fukushima" as "Fukishima" but didn't bother addressing the basic facts.

[0] [http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at- fuku...](http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fukushima- daiichi-are-not-rising/)</comment>


Why Fukushima Was Preventable - <AUTHOR> http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable

<comment><USER2> My jaundiced view of civilian nuclear power is still colored by one of my most vivid experiences in the Navy nuclear reactor program. It came in the course of prepping for the [chief] engineer's exam, after two years of sea duty running reactor plants aboard an aircraft carrier. That in turn had followed a year of intensive academic and practical nuclear propulsion training.

Our "coaches," all senior nuke officers, had us work through the details of some what-if scenarios. Funny thing, we didn't seem to have covered those particular scenarios in our initial training.

It was pretty scary; to this day I'm not convinced that conventional-design civilian nuclear reactors belong anywhere near population centers.

What worried me wasn't the technology itself, but the human fallibility. In the Navy nuclear program, we had the occasional [foul]-up even though we were ferocious about doing things right. We used checklists for _everything_ , even though we were required to have memorized practically every procedure, especially emergency procedures. (In an emergency, the first thing you did was to take the "immediate actions" to put the plant in a safe condition. The second thing you did was to get out the appropriate checklist and start working through it with your watch team.) We second-checked each other's work, and both the worker and the second-checker had to sign off on the work. Noncompliance with the prescribed safety procedures (and with the prescribed serious attitude) was guaranteed to get you in _big_ trouble. The Navy systematically collected and disseminated lessons learned from throughout the nuclear fleet, and every nuclear ship's nuke operators routinely trained on those lessons. All this derived from the tone at the top, set early on by Admiral Rickover.

Both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were caused (so far as is publicly known) by cascading human errors; apparently the same was true at Fukushima. I have no experience whatsoever in the civilian nuclear industry, but these accidents have reinforced my doubts about whether a civilian work force, even one heavily populated by ex-Navy types, can achieve the kind of zero-defect culture we strove for in the Navy.

<comment><USER3> The American nuclear navy is one of the classic examples of what process safety experts call a High Reliability Organisation. HROs are organisations that run dangerous systems susceptible to so-called "Normal Accidents" while having fewer such accidents than their competitors.

The main things that have been found to contribute to HROs are: A chronic sense of unease even in the face of normal operations - always be thinking of ways to improve safety. A separate engineering standards organisation that is not responsible for operations - i.e. they can order shutdowns without affecting their own job objectives in a way that a plant manager cannot. They do not tolerate the so-called "normalisation of deviance" (which is when out- of-range behaviour becomes accepted as people get used to it.).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Long article, but the best one I've run across explaining the inputs used to choose design tolerances, the advances in those methods over the years, and where the Fukushima design and later maintenance was and wasn't in accordance with best practices.

The overall conclusion is that it was known by the early 2000s that the plant's worst-case tsunami estimate, used as its design basis, was no longer sufficient, given improved understanding of tsunamis. At that time, a significant upgrade should have been initiated, since the original design- basis tsunami of 3.1 meters was no longer believed to be a good estimate of the worst case. But those reports basically got buried and nothing was acted on.

Side note: I was wary of submitting, because we've just had a big round of Fukushima and nuclear discussion/debate, and rehashing the same debate in another thread doesn't seem productive. But imo this article is quite informative and worth a read.

<comment><USER4> I don't know Japan's geography, so, maybe it is possible for it to have tsunamis everywere. However, if there is some part of Japan's territory that is safe from tsunamis, wouldn't it be easier to just build those reactors there, and not in a place that is known to have tsunamis since, at least, the year 684 AD?

<comment><USER5> I haven't read the OP article, yet, but as I vaguely recall from past media reporting on the topic, I believe one of the reasons such sites were chosen is that the were economically fairly poor. The jobs were welcome and outweighed residents' safety concerns. (Perhaps safety concerns were also somewhat diminished by said residents having on average a lower degree of independent information and/or education.)

This is from memory; feel free to correct me if and as I'm wrong.

Such approaches can also be spun positively as "economic development packages/projects". Whenever such is said, the observer should look critically at who is really benefiting -- as often as not, I think, the project owners' interests come ahead of, and sometimes at the cost of, those of local residents.

Ideally, all parties gain. But to do so, amongst other things someone has to keep those in power from cutting too many corners.

<comment><USER6> Politics will trump public safety almost every time. Why do we keep rebuilding communities in flood areas, for example?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't everything preventable with the benefit of hindsight?

<comment><USER8> I think the key is that they already had the hindsight years before the accident occurred. They knew, from incidents at other plants and from tsunamis in other areas that the assumtions made when the plant was designed were wrong and the plant was vulnerable. They chose not to act on that knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Black Swan Lessons on the Japanese Disaster .."

 _"We don't understand the world as well as we think we do and tend to be fooled by false patterns. We mistake luck for skills (the fooled by randomness effect), overestimate knowledge about rare events (Black Swans), as well as human understanding, something that has been getting worse with the increase in complexity."_ Nassim Taleb

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-40143642/black- swan-l...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-40143642/black-swan-lessons- on-the-japanese-disaster/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't think it's really relevant. The point is not that there is a way to have safe nuclear energy, the point is that the worst case scenario is catastrophic, and that I don't trust any company or government to do what's necessary, especially if they're strapped for cash.

<comment><USER11> That's not entirely true. There are a lot of new designs (i.e.: not BWR) that passively cool and shutdown without the input of any external energy.

Also, molten salt reactors and fusion reactors won't be able to have catastrophic failure modes either.

<comment><USER12> You can dramatically slow reactors down, but you can't actually 'shut down' because simply decay produces significant amounts of heat. So the real problem at Fukushima was the need to be able to passively cool a reactor indefinitely in that 'slow' state without human interaction and that's where they failed. Sure, if they had power and none of the connectors had failed it would have also been ok, but without long term passive safety nuclear power is not safe.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I understand that you can't just turn them "off." It's easiest just to say that it's shut off if it's unable to do anything really.

I think you missed everything in my previous post. All new designs passively cool. You can have safe (comparative to coal and gas) nuclear power.

<comment><USER12> I should have been more clear, a lot of designs passively cool the reactor / primary loop, but they don't have long term 100% passive cooling on the secondary loop. Though a counter example would be welcome.

<comment><USER3> No, you're right. They have a water pool that cools the secondary loop. That will need refilling after a few days, 72 hours for the ESBWR iirc.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Squall – A microblogging platform that replaces tweetstorms - <AUTHOR> http://squall.io <comment><USER2> I don't know if it's part of the platform, but all of the watermarking seems a little over the top. By that I mean the "sent from Squall", and "by...via @SquallApp".

I'd put forth that you don't need those things to have people understand where the image came from; the link in the twitter post that starts with "squall.io/", and anyone following the link ends up at the site.

Not that it's overwhelming, it's just that I don't personally get any value out of those lines of text being there, and it takes away from the concision of the real post.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a fair point. We're still adjusting the branding. I could see us tuning it down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This not solving a real problem. This problem was entirely invented by twitter and is slowly being degraded in a horrible, suboptimal way.

Maybe I have just having a shitty day, but it is really sad to see people spending time solving silly human imposed problems.

<comment><USER4> What do you suggest they should have built instead?

<comment><USER5> Nothing. Just use any already existing blog platform. No one says you have to make new blog posts all the time. Just post when you have something valuable to say.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Instead of dealing with the possibility that no one would pay attention to his blog, he tries to levy his existing followers by bringing the blog to twitter in the most absurd way possible. If everybody's going to start tweeting images I can kiss my mobile data good bye, all because some dude couldn't bear the thought of being nobody in the blogosphere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I saw a similar application here on HN one of the valid points against this is that you cannot really parse the text through the image, so it becomes a barrier against visually impaired users. At first I was thinking it was going to be links to a bigger tweet or something similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> One difference with Squall is that, while the post is an image on Twitter, it lives on as a text post on Squall.io. So you can always follow the link and parse the text there.

Also the images are highly legible. Check out this Squall for example: [https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864](https://twitter.com/bshyong/status/573557768285732864)

<comment><USER8> aren't you going to have issues like this in the twitter stream, where the top and bottom of the image is lost:

[http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png](http://i.imgur.com/6jfKcFW.png)

<comment><USER9> You see the title and a legible paragraph when you're scrolling through a feed of random tweets. Seems superior to any alternative I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice work, just read about your project in an Assembly email.

That said, based on all of the Squall posts I've looked at, I can only read a fraction of the image. The rest is obscured by Twitter.

Given this state of affairs, how is Squall better than just posting a link to a Gist, or something like that, since I have to click on the link to read the full post in both cases?

</comment><comment><USER11> What is a "tweetstorm"? A rapid series of tweets on a particular event or topic?

<comment><USER12> Here's an example: [https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185](https://twitter.com/fredwilson/status/570336180849373185)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice work austin! (Fellow assembly user)

Thoughts: \- I was wondering about this exact same thing the other day. Twitter photos have made it really easy to break the 140 character rule, and there are lots of wordpics in my stream these days. This seems like a brilliant hack. \- [BUG] No space between "Posted" and "Month" \- It currently counts self-views as well. Maybe remove them from the count? Should be possible as long as images are not on a CDN, I think

</comment><comment><USER14> Good idea. I've seen similar things in China Weibo a few years ago. It is a very popular way to write one long tweet(weibo). It seems like Chinese companies may start from copying but they can gradually come up with innovative ideas. Wechat is another example. I think its platform beats what's app, line.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, core team here from Squall. I'd be happy to answer any questions/comments.

Squall is a community-built product on Assembly. So each contributor gets some fraction of ownership, commensurate with their contribution to the product.

I'd highly suggest writing a Squall post. It's an easy way to say more on Twitter.

<comment><USER15> What's your opinion on accessibility?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So you are basically converting text to images, eliminating the character limit? I guess hashtag and @connect wouldn't work in this solution?

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks like a rearrangement of the Assembly logo.

</comment><comment><USER18> [http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz](http://imgur.com/EpY3Ioz)

Interface failure all over the place.

<comment><USER19> We'll definitely work on making it better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This could be really powerful if they will enhance the message editor (images, formatting etc.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Stucked at "Posting tweet..."</comment>


PÜL – A carpooling app designed to help students get involved in their community - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pul <comment><USER2> Well I love the UI. Very fresh looking. Amazing to see a highschool kid do what most never will.</comment>


Online Pornography: A Disciplined Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/magazine/29kink.t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=802f9b879941be4b&ex=1335585600&partner=digg&exprod=digg <comment><USER2> Mr. Graham take note, so when I reapply to YC for my bondage-centric start-up we can become much richer.

There is a thin line between pain and profit.</comment>


Trolling homework questions - <AUTHOR> http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/16226/i-need-a-program-where-the-user-inputs-an-array-of-doubles-and-the-program-outpu

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973010)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is one of the most entertaining threads I have ever witnessed.</comment>


Loveland's founder is running for Treasurer of Detroit - <AUTHOR> http://greatamericanpixel.tumblr.com/post/131105538310/treasurerapplication <comment><AUTHOR> It's actually treasurer for Wayne County which includes the city of Detroit. For some reason I couldn't edit the headline.

</comment><comment><USER2> Loveland is the successor to [http://whydontweownthis.com](http://whydontweownthis.com) which was one of the original interactive maps of urban blight by parcel in Detroit. It seems that they offer similar information and mapping nationwide now.</comment>


BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41895-7 <comment><USER2> Nature Scientific Reports is open access mega journal with low selectivity for articles. Mega journal publishing model is to accept articles if they are technically sound and ignoring scientific importance

> Our results point the way to future brain-to-brain interfaces that enable > cooperative problem solving by humans using a "social network" of connected > brains.

When you read the procedure, it's underwhelming. Using EEG to extract one bit of information is relatively easy. Using TMS to transfer one bit of information is relatively easy. Connecting the two is trivial. Might be demanding for a undergraduate project in medical physics but that's it.

<comment><USER3> My read also. This is a parlor trick at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing you have to be careful in EEG studies that transmit single bits is that EEG is very suspectible to muscle artifacts.

From:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390358/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390358/)

"

Physiological artifacts may include cardiac, pulse, respiratory, sweat, glossokinetic, eye movement (blink, lateral rectus spikes from lateral eye movement), and muscle and movement artifacts.

"

You may not actually reading the brain of the sender, but rather that the sender moves their eyes or their jaws or gets excited and increases their heart rate when transmitting the information.

<comment><USER5> This 100%. There's just too much electromagnetic interference. EEG picks up facial movements most of the time, and greatly attenuated large-scale neuron oscillations _at best_. That's why neuroscientists studying brain functionality put electrodes _in_ rodents rather than put EEG devices on them. This gives them way higher-fidelity data.

<comment><USER5> Follow up -- whatever people think of Elon Musk, he isn't wrong about this. If humans ever reach a BCI future, it will have to be in vivo. The first step is making intracranial BCIs safe, the next step is to make them useful. They have much more promise than external BCIs, but until they're safe, people will continue to doubt them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what I can tell, if this work is actually correct it is an extraordinary accomplishment: we can both read and perceptibly write information in the brain, and transmit it between individuals directly. I mean, sure we can do that already by talking or waving hands or any number of other methods, but this means that perception-coding is effectively a solved problem.

<comment><USER7> I have not read the entirety of the detailed paper, so I cannot be sure that my critique is bulletproof, but based on my cursory reading, the following critique:

Unfortunately, because the information transmitted is a single bit, I'm concerned that there are all kinds of ways this sort of system could amount to "are they using this _very, very general_ part of their brain or not?" transmission. On the receivers side the decoding could be accomplished _not_ by "feeling the thoughts" in the sense we would expect (i.e. the thoughts of another person inside your head), but rather by having that single bit of information felt by the electric stimulation of the skin of the scalp, etc.

Granted, they do say they introduced noise into the signal -- but again, if the information is just one bit, and you're aware of exactly the information's timing, etc, it makes decoding it a lot easier. (No "When does the signal start?" problem)

I am long-term BCI/CBI Bullish, but I'm concerned this is less of a "new age" moment, and more of a "clever headline" moment

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is equivalent to sitting three people back to back and they can only tap each other as a form of communication. Left hand for rotate left right hand for rotate right. The Eeg is not amazing we know they can be used to estimate intent and play games. Tms has a physical feeling to it and in this case a visual phosphene cue. You haven't introduced thoughts magnetically you've introduced a feeling.

<comment><USER9> Yes. This method will never scale up to meaningfully transmitting information between individuals. I'm not sure why this was deemed worth funding when it's a dead end and I'm sure the authors know that.

We are not going to get a useful BCI without sticking electrodes into people's brains in the next few decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meanwhile... "Psychedelic Experiences Associated with a Novel Hypnosis Procedure Mutual Hypnosis"

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/cttart/articles/april2013articles/P...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cttart/articles/april2013articles/Psychedelic+Experiences+Associated+with+a+Novel+Hypnotic+Procedure,+Mutual+Hypnosis.pdf)

You don't need machinery to do this sort of thing: the brain already has great I/O through the face and eyes.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could it be a bullshit article to prove the point that they can end up in Nature?

Just asking because some part looked really dubious, but I have no expertise at all in this area so maybe it's fair.

<comment><USER2> They are not publishing in The Nature.

Nature Scientific Reports is open access mega journal with low selectivity for articles. Mega journal publishing model is to accept articles if they are technically sound and ignoring scientific importance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This doesnt sound much different than having the subjects tap each other to communicate, just done with fancy head mounted equipment. It could be useful for completely paralyzed people to play games

</comment><comment><USER13> A thread from last year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070116)

</comment><comment><USER14> Can this system do anything better than normal communication? (Which is also a brain network, obviously, and just as "direct")

<comment><USER15> It's more efficient.

<comment><USER14> I'm assuming you're joking; if not, can you explain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> a-dub silly.</comment>


This Acoustic Tractor Beam Can Levitate Small Objects with Sound - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/acoustic-tractor-beam-can-levitate-small-objects-sound-180957060/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463175)</comment>


Ask HN: How to hide HN karma/scores from my user account? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> The karma ticking up and down is very distracting. Maybe it would be great to have an option to turn its visibilty off?

<comment><USER2> If you use ublock-origin, there is a simple element picker tool that lets you block parts of a web page.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is cool. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can hide karma by using Stylus, or other stylesheet extensions. Just target the element and it's gone.

Another user's suggestion on blocking elements with UBlock Origin also works.</comment>


How to Sell – a guide for SaaS startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.entrepidpartners.com/how-to-sell-guide <comment><USER2> > Common mistakes made by salespeople and founders:

> \- Thinking their goal is to close a prospect on the first call

> \- Giving a full demo and presenting pricing on the first call

> \- Prematurely trying to shorten the sales process

These are mistakes? Having been on the receiving end of many "sales processes" I would say the shorter the sales process, the better. I often feel like companies who are too deep into doing high touch sales don't really respect my time and are _shocked_ when I tell them to cut to the chase and yes, I do expect to hear about pricing on the first call, otherwise there won't be another call.

Disclaimer: I have zero patience for abundant sales processes.

<comment><USER3> Then I would never sell you a thing. Ever. Anyone that buys on price is a worse customer than a person that buys on education, and churn of bad customers is a silent killer. That doesn't make you a bad person of course, so please take no offense. It just makes you an unideal customer for pretty much everything I've ever sold in 20 years.

High touch sales processes exist to provide certainty when making a big purchasing decision. Prospects often think this is for their benefit, all this interaction and courting. But it's also for the benefit of the company courting you. Making sure there is no charge-back and that the client is set up for success is a big part of being a successful salesperson.

<comment><USER4> I understand your point, and you aren't wrong, but you are short-sighted. You may only sell to big clients now, but you are also leaving a lot of money on the table for yourself, not your company, yourself.

You've been selling for 20 years? How many of your customers have you had for longer than 3?

Now I can hear your mind churning, 'but I'm at a different company now! I don't sell the same thing!'. It doesn't matter. Sales is sales. And the best sales people foster relationships for years before they really sell the big bucks. And can go back to those same clients and sell different products and it's easy because those clients know them and trust them.

Ever get that little pang of jealousy wondering why that guy you know in sales plays golf every day with clients and doesn't seem to do much else? It's not because he's just that good. He's not. He might even suck. It's most likely bc he has been building relationships with those clients for years and they would buy a cactus as a new pillow if he asked them to.

This attitude of telling the little guy to piss off bc he isn't your type of client might make for some ok sales now, maybe you even have a shiny BMW, but it doesn't make for long term relationships with people who trust you. Once those people at that big company move on to bigger and better things, you'll be stuck grinding it out with whoever they replace them with.

I take it you work hard. You're certainly passionate. But after 20 years in sales, you shouldn't have to be working hard. Whether you changed companies and products every six months or still work for the same company, you should have been building relationships.

Instead you are content writing off the little guy as a waste of your time. The same senior management you grind it out to sell to now who was a little guy 20 years ago. And the same little guys who will be senior management in 10 - 20 years.

I imagine you'll still be grinding it out every day then also, instead of playing golf like you should be.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure your post was meant for me even if you think it was. I dont write off the little guy, I write off the person that just wants to know about price price price.

My churn rate is low precisely because I take time to learn what they want then provide what they need. I work with clients that are a good fit in both directions and got out of the "anything for a buck" game years ago.

I work hard building my businesses, but I don't have to work hard at sales precisely because of what you said - I've built relationships and skills that make it fun for me to sell. I work about 5 hours a day, travel a ton and play lots of golf. ;)

<comment><USER5> agreed. Whether someone cares only about price, is a separate trait from whether that person is a big/little guy

in the very original comment, it said "I do expect to hear about pricing on the first call, otherwise there won't be another call. Disclaimer: I have zero patience for abundant sales processes."

this person isn't asking about price because he/she is "little" and can't afford it. Even if the person is a big guy with a lot of $, he/she will still haggle you on price, because that's his/her worldview.

besides, it's unclear that a little guy with a "zero-patience policy" that fixates on price price price as a principle, will likely become a big guy some day.

Even if they did become a big guy some day, you would still have a lot of problems making money from them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found this ~20 page guide Fog Creek put out a few years ago and it got me excited about switching from a technical role into sales. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a high level understanding of Enterprise sales.

[https://www.fogcreek.com/guide/The-most-basic-things-your- co...](https://www.fogcreek.com/guide/The-most-basic-things-your-company- needs-to-know-about-sales.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Direct link: [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57daf6098419c27febcd4...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57daf6098419c27febcd400b/t/5b0b4dc68a922dbfa263b389/1527467516482/Entrepid_How+To+Sell.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> i've worked with Tyler and Entrepid across multiple of our portfolio companies at Axiom Zen and been super impressed every time

ZenHub wouldnt be where it is today without Tyler (we have dozens of Fortune 500 companies as customers)

Tyler is a close friend so at this point i am biased, but Entrepid has built a team of humble, holistic thinkers with deep expertise in sales and high-touch growth strategy

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice guide for high-touch sales.

I'd love to see something similar for low-touch/no-touch sales SaaS.

<comment><USER3> "Low touch / no touch" sales is also known as "marketing." I don't know you or your intentions so this may not be directed at you, but I've found that most people looking to develop a low-touch sales engine are really saying "Ew...sales...I don't want to have to do that. Maybe if I blog enough and my site looks good I won't have to actually, you know, TALK to potential customers."

I also find that anything above about $70/month MRR is going to require talking to the person. $70 is a limit that most companies will allow to be expensed without much question. MAYBE you can get that number to $100 in the right market. Above $100? Good luck. And if you are selling a $100+ product with no-touch then you are really missing out on TONS of business that could come your way if you just put in some actual sales effort.

<comment><USER10> If I could offer some perspective from someone in the sales trenches:

Cold calling does not work. No matter how good your script is, your email, your personality, your talk track, your data sources, your persistence, cold calling does not work. It is a poor ROI.

All real sales are made either through the customer opting in to communicate (response to an email blast, inbound lead from the company phone, a referral etc)... or through nepotism and cronyism and ivy league networks of multi millionaires. Hint: this is how Oracle is alive to this day.

If I was in charge of selling a product over $100, I would create the most awesome, viral content you would ever see about our product. I would release a free version to 99% of the world that is truly usable and awesome.

This is what join.me did to compete with Webex and Skype for Business and GoToMeeting.

Remember: if you don't have an existing network, you don't have any business.

Start marketing before you start selling.

<comment><USER11> Bryan from Entrepid Partners here... we find that highly targetted, outbound cold emails are actually the best place to start prospecting.

In our experience, if you do the extra work to personalize the email and focus in on why your product/service is relevant to the buyer's pain points, we've seen response rates as high as 30% with the majority of those replies turning into an intro call with the buyer.

<comment><USER10> Hi Bryan :)

>highly targeted, outbound cold emails...

...are neither scalable nor calls, in my mind. Here's my opinions:

1) I am currently manually building my own unsolicited email list for the purpose of marketing my b2b service. I have good, quality data sources with no bounce rates and right personas, but it is neither cheap nor simple to enter this data manually

2) even if I send these people highly targeted and well-crafted emails that are friendly and insightful and pithy, it is a slow process with diminishing returns...

3)... because most people add me to their spam filter these days. It is trivial to do so.

I would infinitely prefer to invest my time in creating excellent, viral content and offering users a free entry level service with few restrictions.

I would then spend all my time obsessively devoting myself to those users who have a big budget and greatly desire to receive communication from me.

Lastly, I dare say that someone who responds to a cold email will probably just end up kicking tires.

Tire kicking is automated away with my free demo.

<comment><USER3> Certainly more than one way to do this, but I agree with Bryan.

Highly targeted email lists are scaleable enough and there is plenty of tech to make them more personal than ever. I disagree a great deal with the idea that cold respondents "end up kicking tires." 100% of my marketing is cold email. 100% of the marketing I do for clients is cold email. I'm happy with my ROI and so are they.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I do Chef and Ansible development. I'd love to know how to sell and find more good customers. I have a long-term customer who's had me on what amounts to a staff augmentation project for 3 years. I know it won't last forever. How would you go about finding more projects like this?

<comment><USER3> Email me and I would be glad to have a back and forth for free. Good sales process comes down to patience and persistence and I can coach you through both if you dont mind the sometimes-slowness of email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Kudos to you guys. Please report back in a few weeks with the metrics on the number of leads this created for you. I'm in the same space and this content marketing is golden.

</comment><comment><USER13> This actually scares me.

I want to bootstrap an SaaS company focused on enterprise / b2b soon and being bootstraped I can't afford to hire an sales rep/ account manager (or be one myself while working on the product) for what looks like a long process.

This is definitely a scary thought in my opinion.

Fingers crossed, I hope that's a good problem to have.

<comment><USER14> We are exactly at this stage right now. Bootstrapped, enterprise SaaS, ready for initial sales. This post could not have been more timely for me.

I'm not sure if this is possible in your niche, but we are partnering with a consulting company which provides services in the same industry/niche. We will give them a cut from the sales to do this exact process. Many leads will come from them as well. I could not imagine doing this any other way at the moment. Eventually we will certainly hire a full time salesperson.

edit: we got really lucky that this consulting company had some biz dev people who used to do SaaS sales at a previous employer.

<comment><USER11> In our experience, the founder should close the first 3-10 enterprise deals on their own. When you chose to outsource, you may close some deals, but you lose out on the early customer product feedback.

The relationships with your early customers are key. You need to make your early customers your biggest fans to show how your product changed their business through references and/or mini-case studies.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I am definitely in on all calls at this point. And thanks for the rest of the advice, I am trying to follow it already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there an awesome list for business that this can be added to?

\--edit nevermind, here it is:

[https://github.com/cameronroe/awesome- marketing](https://github.com/cameronroe/awesome-marketing)

it's not added to the main awesome list, so I'm making a pull req for that too.

</comment><comment><USER16> Excellent guide - rings true.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is super helpful!

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd recommend also reading this: [https://medium.com/@fairpixelsco/b2b-growth- strategies-by-in...](https://medium.com/@fairpixelsco/b2b-growth-strategies- by-indiehackers-8ab87ed66d0d)

It's an analysis of successful growth strategies used by B2B SaaS Startups that are listed on Indiehackers.com

As well as the Saastr podcast. Full of gems on how to sell.</comment>